Monthly Archives: December 2015

I always bang on about how social media is a great way to expand your audience and generally raise brand awareness, but it can be a huge help when it comes to warming up cold leads.

Let’s say you’ve done your research and you have a list of prospects you want to contact. Yes, you could just drop them an email, or pick up the phone to schedule an appointment, but we all know the chances of you getting anywhere with that are quite remote. Someone that doesn’t know you, and hasn’t had any contact from you in the past, isn’t going to jump at the prospect of working with you.

It can be hard to know how to make contact with someone you don’t actually know, but the reality is with social media you can reach out to countless people around the globe. Yet, for some reason, so few people actually bother.

If you look at your list there’s a good chance every company on there is going to have at least one social media channel. It might be Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube or Pinterest to name but a few. If you’re serious about reaching out and starting a two-way relationship, then you need to start following them.

Not only that, you should actively interact with them. Now, I don’t mean you should RT everything they post, that’s entering in to creepy stalker territory, but do get involved where it makes sense to. Tag them in posts you think would be relevant to them, engage in conversation. DM them when it’s appropriate to do so to introduce yourself, and perhaps your business and services.

If the company is on LinkedIn, follow them and share some of their updates. You can also find out who some of the employees are at the business, which may make it easier for you to make contact and get a positive outcome further down the line. Where possible make contact with these people. You can always lead with “I’ve been following your business on Twitter for some time and would like to find out more about what you offer”.

I always say social networking is not simply about collecting names. It doesn’t matter who you know if you don’t genuinely know them, and can’t reach out to them when you need something. You need to take the time to nurture these relationships, and honestly it will pay off in the end.